Let them sag

One of the things that seems to upset most people’s sensibilities is seeing young boys and men walking around with their pants at half mast and their underwear showing.

We are not sure what kind of fashion statement or any statement dressing this way makes. All we know is it very distasteful to see and automatically forms a bad opinion of the person who is walking around at half mast.

Recently it seems to be the trend with local municipalities to attempt to create legislation to ban such outlandish fashion statements.

Porterdale is working on an ordinance and some members of the Covington City Council want to use the legislative path to do the same. However, as Porterdale learned Monday night, the ban on baggy pants isn’t legal. It is considered under the law to be a form of self expression and to infringe on that could open the city up to serious and costly litigation.

We understand why our elected officials may want to do this. By enacting bills to try to curb this fashion statement though, we head down a slippery slope. If you legislate how people dress, no matter how repugnant, where do you stop?

Do you legislate because you don’t like shoes or the makeup people use? Or do you legislate if shorts are too short? We don’t think a majority of sane people wish that.

Wearing pants half way to your ankles is a social issue; we don’t think you can legislate people’s morals. Yes we do have laws that try to do that, but they either don’t work effectively or they are not enforced. What should happen is that the folks who run around dressed in such a manner should have manners taught to them by their mothers and fathers and grandparents, and if that doesn’t work, they should have to pay a visit to the woodshed.

To our elected officials, think twice before you get to the bottom of the slope.